The Circus

One of my least favorite events to work at the Garden is the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. It's a slow event, extremely boring, and to top it off, it's very depressing. 

When I show up to work there's a barricade that I need to wander around to get to my locker. The barricades are just giant cages for animals that are being abused to perform. They have all sorts of things like llamas, goats, sheep, pigs, even a bull, for the petting zoo. But the animals that I feel most bad for is the elephants and tigers. I walked by a giant fenced in area filled with about 15 elephants. Every elephant had an enormous chain around their ankle and can probably move about two feet in each direction. They look miserable and after talking to some of my supervisors I found out that they are highly sedated. Elephant junkies. These elephants are whipped with batons at their knees and aren't allowed to do much. I stared at them for a few minutes and watched as they just picked up grass and hay off the concrete floor and placed it on their head and backs. I don't know why they were doing this, but to me it seemed like they wanted to pretend they were outside. I'm not a big animal enthusiast or some type of PETA freak, but this genuinely upset me.

Next were the tigers. These animals are in even smaller cages and led by a Serbian dictator who whips and taunts these giant cats. He pissed me off a lot. I had to escort him and three tigers onto the stage and I was in awe how comfortable he was around them. Probably because he smacked them around so much the tigers feared him. I didn't even watch the show because of this guy. He had some aggravating accent and condescending tone when I asked him questions about the tigers. Fuck that guy.

For the rest of the show I figured I was all set with animal abuse for the day and wandered downstairs to the locker-room area where the performers were changing into all sorts of weird costumes. I watched as some of the late parents came into the arena. Theres always a few pedophiles who show up to these children's events so we got to be on the lookout for them. One year at Disney on Ice we had something like 3 sex offenders arrested for trying to solicit children into bathrooms and stuff. Disney on Ice is worse than the Circus though.

All in all it was a boring night. Some crazy mother got wrecked and had to be transported to Mass General. That was unexpected. I got the call over the radio and saw this poor Southie-lookin' Irish lady passed out in her seat with her little kids poking her. They had to call an uncle to come get them and I was just real embarrassed for everyone involved. I don't know if I'll work another circus or kids show again. Too much weird stuff happens and I'm all set with animal abuse from now on.

The Sleeve Monster

Since there hasn't been a Garden event recently where I've had any funny experiences I figured I would shed some light on something that continually irratates me... The Sleeve Monster.

The Sleeve Monster is a legend of sorts. He lurks in the shadows and when you least expect it he comes out of hiding and just obliterates the sleeves of your shirt. Normally, the Sleeve Monster strikes while on the way to the gym, or out on a hot summer day. Regardless, he can strike when you least expect it. Sometimes, he strikes on your way to class, or when you go over a friends house to watch some football. The Sleeve Monster knows no boundaries and people everywhere should constantly be on the lookout for him and his cousin, the V-Neck Monster. The V-Neck Monster is a terrible creature who rips deep V's into men's clothing normally on the way to their local bar exposing all sorts of man chest I don't need to be seeing.

All joking aside, what the fuck is up with people with no sleeves? We get it, you do curls and bench presses at the gym. You don't need to show us. Some girls may find this attractive, probably not a majority, though I would like to find out a hard statistic on this matter. Regardless, dress yourself. Cut-off shirts were meant for basketball and the beach. Don't wear your sleeveless Under Armor to class or your black beater to the gym. You look like a tool and most people will be making fun of you. Some scrub girl might try to get your number if you have a lot of tattoos of skulls and fire and smoke or something but she probably has the clap or is Hep-C positive. She also probably has bleach blonde hair, a tongue ring and an orange tan. Stop it. We're not on the Jersey Shore and nobody wants to see that.

Hopefully something good will happen when the Bruins raise the Stanley Cup banner tonight and I can write about some wild occurence because the Sleeve Monster has just officially ruined my day. Have a good day and beware of the Sleeve Monster.

Enrique Iglesias

I work security at the TD Garden so most, if not all of my posts will be chronicling events and hilarious mishaps I run into on a nightly basis. So, this past week the work-season has started up again and already, funny things have been happening on Causeway Street.

First, lets get into the Enrique Iglesias concert that happened last Thursday night. I showed up for work at 6 like I normally do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was dreading the concert because lets just say that a Latin-American, closet homo-sexual pop singer isn't my cup of tea. Upon walking into the building however, I noticed a large population of extremely sexy spanish women wearing some very risqué attire. I figured the night wouldn't go so badly.

Pitbull was supposed to open for Enrique and do an hour-long set. I hate Pitbull. His music sounds like loud tribal music with spanish lyrics being screamed in the background. It's obnoxious, loud, and hurts my head to know that he makes millions of dollars every year to produce that garbage. After a quick conversation with my boss, he informed us that we needed to head down to the box office and control the crowd trying to get refunds. Apparently, Pitbull got wrecked and missed his flight so he would not be performing.

Upon walking downstairs, mayhem ensued. There was Spanish people everywhere yelling and screaming about refunds. Now I am far from racist, my girlfriend is from Peru so I'm used to a Spanish argument or two, but this was unlike anything I've ever seen. We estimated about 2,000 people, mostly Latin, wanting refunds. One group told me that they had come all the way from Mexico to see Pitbull and were not even remotely interested in the main act, which of course was Enrique. After a few people were evicted for recklessness and some 2 hours of chaos, most people got refunds and left a considerable amount of space in the arena.

When I finally got into the arena, Enrique was already performing. I would be pissed if I was an Enrique/Pitbull fan and bought tickets to this show. Some schmuck nobody ever has heard of performed from 7-7:30. Pitbull was supposed to go on from 8-9:15 and Enrique was supposed to go on from 9:45-11. So Pitbull  didn't show up and I heard Enrique didn't get on stage until 10. So basically people were just sitting inside the building from 7:30-10ish. I didn't get to see too much of the show because I kept running back and forth from First-Aid trying to write reports on underage drunk girls who threw up all over themselves and needed to be transported to Mass General. From what I did see however, Enrique was doing some weird stuff. At one point he pulled a rather larger woman onto the stage and held onto her for the performance of an entire song. She was loving it. Probably one of the more uncomfortable things I've ever seen. A 5 minute embrace onstage during a slow Enrique song. After the song was over Enrique kissed the woman from the crowd and jumped into a box backstage where they wheeled him to his limo as he made his escape from the building around 10:45pm.

I wonder where a metrosexual latin pop singer spends his Thursday nights in Boston. Probably in Chelsea or Everett. Yeah, that's what I would assume.